Kintsugi on a Split Bone Quena
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In a world that so often prizes youth, perfection and excess, embracing the old and battered may seem strange. But the 15th-Century practice of kintsugi, meaning “to join with gold”, is a reminder to stay optimistic when things fall apart and to celebrate the flaws and missteps of life.
-Terushi Sho, for BBC Travel
The Lupaca Bone Quena, post kintsugi, close up.
Since my early childhood, I’ve had a strong bond with scarred things. When I sew my torn clothing, I like to use threads and stitches that stand out. When I fix my broken things, I always love to do so with quality craftsmanship that carries a signature…ok sometimes I’ll replace craftsmanship with ingenuity and run with it…but at least there’s an ethos. Anyway last year I saw a meme about kintsugi and was like, holy shit that’s me!
Screenshot from traditionalkyoto.com
I left the Lupaca in my car overnight, played it for 20 minutes or so this morning, then set it down for a few, picked it up again and could not make a sound no matter how hard I tried. It honestly took me something like 10 minutes of trying to figure out the problem with my technique before I finally examined the body of the flute, but sometime shortly after I’d set it down, it must have just popped!
The picture above, a screen shot from the video I was shooting at the time, is all I have for a before shot. I was so excited to come up with a plan and do the repair I just didn’t even think of it.
Anyway, my bone quena splitting, likely due to thermal expansion, I knew right away would be a perfect opportunity to add a kintsugi-style approach to my repair style. I apologize, I was not thinking about posting when I did this, so I got busy and took almost no pictures.
- But all I did was set a little plastic bin under a burr sander and grind the rounded end off of a brass punch. It created a very small pile of brass filings, but definitely enough. I used an awl to scratch loose particles and fibers out of the openings, and rubbing alcohol to clean it all off afterwards.
Next I soaked a q-tip in super glue, dipped it in the brass dust, and pressed/brushed it into the cracks, allowing it all to dry for a few hours.
Once it had fully dried, I sanded it with a high grit count paper, then wiped it down with one more blast of rubbing alcohol - and voila!
If you look at it from a normal distance, say, arm’s length, it just looks black. I think this is really cool. In this way it looks like something I would have always done, but then it also hides a secret treasure!
In the closeups above and at the top, you can see that, when observed closely, the old cracks’ black filling is actually as beautiful little micro-lode of brass flecks - but it’s beauty is only shown to those who look for it ;)
Finally, I couldn’t resist the urge. Now that I had a flute that already had my fingerprint forever stamped upon it, I decided it was finally time to see how the laser engraver does on the round body of a flute - I think it came out looking pretty cool:
The Japanese characters on either side of the bird (should) say kintsugi…a lot like a dog named dog I guess, but still it looks cool :)
Anyway, thanks for checking out some more of my work! As always, I hope you enjoyed witnessing as much as I enjoyed creating!
© Photos and words by @albuslucimus
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